So I started it up a few days ago and made some progress and realized the DLC wasn't up on the eShop yet. Upon checking today, I noticed that there's an extra, harder difficulty available! This was a bit frustrating as this is the one I wanted to start with. Having played the original a couple of times, I'm definitely used to the mechanics so throwing a bit of extra challenge in there would be fun. But yeah... this "Deadly" difficulty definitely doesn't mess around. Battles that should be easy require different strategies to get through. Enemies often overpower you by what simply feels like acting out of turn and attacking you multiple times before you even have a chance to react and replenish health. It's a fun challenge but I'm a bit worried how this'll end up since I'm still really early into the game.

I did run into some new content though involving the new Nemesia character introduced to this version. I'm not really sure where this is going yet but it should be fun to see how it develops! Can't wait to see what sort of roles she plays into the story.

I picked this up yesterday and am looking forward to playing it. I haven’t finished the demo yet so I’m going to do that first before really diving into the full game.

Though between Monster Hunter and Dragon Ball I hope I can find time to squeeze this RPG into rotation!

I'm surprised how the voice acting is adding new life to these characters. I was worried when I saw the trailer a while back with the voice acting but these fit surprisingly well when hearing them while playing. Marco and Raynie are pretty great.

It's always great when quality voice work is done in games. Glad to hear (literally, haha!) they did it right in this one. I kind of wish they did more with the graphics. I mean, they still look good, but you can tell this wasn't a "built-from-the-ground-up" 3DS game.

Yeah the visuals are identical to the original as far as I can tell but of course there’s more screen space to work with. Also I finally really opened up the new content and it seems to add quite a bit to the game. I’m curious to see how this all works into the game as a whole though... but man, that hardest difficulty is making progress really hard haha.

@VofEscaflowne

Yeah I considered doing the harder difficulty but I decided against it. I don’t mind a challenge, but I’ve got several RPGs on the back burner right now so I don’t want to get stone-walled and have to grind or whatever just to progress a little bit.

I did consider ‘Friendly Mode’ as well, buuuuuut...that seemed like the weak-sauce way out. But the mode sounds really cool so I may check it out on the rare instance I do a re-play.

What are your thoughts on that mode? Was it ever a consideration?

I don't mind that the mode is there. I think it's good for people who just want to experience the story with little to no trouble when it comes to battles. As long as options are there and are well balanced, I don't see why it's an issue to anyone's enjoyment.

Yeah, I'd agree. Even though it's essentially "Easy Mode" I feel it'd actually be a benefit to returning players. They already went through all this stuff before, so this new mode allows them to experience the story and world without the grinding and repetitive battles and such. It may even feel like a whole new game with the action-oriented fights happening on the overworld. Pretty cool they threw that in.

Did you ever consider trying it out yourself?

Maybe it would feel different but sounds like a single hit to enemies in the overhead view is instant win so there's no challenge there. Part of the fun in the original was the battles so skipping that entirely for the most part would be a bit weird so can't say I considered it. The new challenges were appealing to me really which is why I cranked that up to the highest difficulty which I may be regretting. Even after grinding for new equipment in the added areas, it feels like the extra defense boost I get from these items do nothing in helping me out

I find it hard to believe that I'm still somehow progressing through this game. Several times I hit sections where I was like nope, this is it. I can't go on any longer cause the difficulty was just brutal but there's always a tiny thing that happens in the alternate timeline that just gives me that extra thing I need to make a difference. And now this boss battle, which is a 1 on 1, made me think the same but no, I just had to make sure I pushed the boss in the back row, used defense boosting items, figure out it's weakness which was poison and simply poison it and hit defend each turn just to watch it die. Simple boss battle when you think about it that way but a strategy I would have never used any other time.

I watched GameXplain's review discussion last night and it really put me in the mood to revisit this game. Maybe I'll download the demo. Just a taste man, that's all I need maaaaaan...

Okay, and here I thought I was progressing well until I hit this boss that can kill anyone in a single shot or nearly one shot KO everyone in a single attack. And it sometimes attacks twice in a row... uh.

EDIT: Okay, nevermind. I killed the boss in a single set of turns Woo for being able to act out of turn with special abilities.

Man I forgot how awesome the battle system is in this game. The grid and combo system is such a blast and adds a certain level of strategy that is absent from so many other RPGs.

Also, my gawd. The music. Was it re-made for the 3DS release? Or did I just forget how good it was/is?

Maybe higher quality but the music is the same. Yoko Shimomura did compose 5 new songs for this remake though.

Yeah, maybe higher quality. And 5 new songs? Where are those? Probably in the new scenarios, I’d guess?

@GameDadGrant

I think there's a new song that plays in scenes in the main game? Either that or I don't remember it in the original.

@nate38

Fair warning, the demo is more than just a "taste." It's pretty meaty. If you've played the demo for something like say, Bravely Second, you've got a good idea of how much content is in this demo.

@VofEscaflowne

Hm, I'll keep an eye out for it. Er, ear.

So after putting over 15 hours in the demo, I've been slowly chipping away at this game. It's pretty awesome, I love the battle mechanics and pacing.

I can now also confirm that the music is mostly the same as the DS original, but it almost sounds like they...I don't want to say re-recorded it. But, like...it sounds much better. Crisper, clearer and with a richer "sound" that I can only guess the beefier 3DS sound chip can provide.

Loving the voice acting, too. It's not all perfect, but far better than I expected.

Now that people have had the time to sink into this game, I have a little question.

I already have the original game for the DS that I've barely played. Is the original game still worth playing, or would I be better off getting this?

@Mop it up

Honestly, you can't go wrong either way. The original still holds up, but there is some new added content and some features (like the better-than-it-should-be voice acting) in the 3DS game.

Have you tried the 3DS version's demo? That gives a pretty good feel of how the 3DS game looks/plays/sounds compared to the DS one. You may be able to form your own opinion about it from there.

But like I said, you can't go wrong either way. sorry I'm probably no help